The summer between 4th and 5th grades was an intense one. A Reading and a Maths school book had somehow materialized in my meager 10-year-old self’s library, and they were ever so keen to get to know me in a more intimate way… That is to say, my mom was trying to cram them down my throat and I was busy thinking up avoidance techniques.

School books for 2nd grade¹ .

The first day of middle school, left quite a horrified imprint on my tender 11-year-old life. I couldn’t understand a word during history and geography classes. Understandably under such dire circumstances, the impending “menace” of religious education classes sort of slipped my mind. That is until a pesky little paper slip had made its presence known, asking about students’ religious denomination.

As usual, my mom had done her research, and found out that while religious education was no longer optional, one could choose to attend a different class. So yet again, there was the oddball, whose paper slip looked like:

Of course, just because we had a law that said “Thou shall either attend religious education or civic education classes in middle school” did not in any way mean there was an actual school equipped with a civic education teacher²… In other words, my mom seemed to be the only one to know about such a law…

Sure enough, the next day a perplexed Mathematics teacher started class with:

Teacher: One of your parents wrote “civic education” on the paper slip…

Cue excited murmurs and not-so-subtle staring at random classmates.

Teacher: I don’t know where this parent heard about such a thing, but we don’t have it.

I had never been so glad to be a new kid in my entire life. Nobody knew me, and the flashing neon sign stating “I am a heathen atheist” had finally gotten lost in the mail. Oh and best of all: I got to attend religious education classes! :yay:

Oddly enough, I barely remember anything about 5th grade religious education classes. Someone had recommended the Greek Catholic rite teacher, so that’s what I ended up attending…

I remember my 6th grade much better though. The teacher was called Leonia Conea, and she took the class extremely seriously. Not that other teachers didn’t… it’s just that there was this sort of tacit understanding that while religious education was important, one could not possibly put it on the same level as say, Maths or Literature.

Orthodox icon shop, in Greece.³

It was also during 6th grade that I had seen my first Greek Catholic liturgy⁴, and had promptly decided that I’d never get baptized in this rite. -_-;

I had gone to both Reformed worship services and Roman Catholic masses during primary school and had actually quite enjoyed both of them⁵ . While Roman Catholic and Protestant services generally have the priest/minister speak about one subject or another… Orthodox and Greek Catholic services have them sing about it. :shake:

For your viewing pleasure, below you have a 3 minute video of a Greek Catholic liturgy in Romanian. As far as I’m concerned, the whole thing looks the same only it lasts an hour, instead of 3 minutes.⁶

It was during 7th grade that I had started to take a more … active approach in my religious education. Our teacher was a very pretty and very friendly young woman⁷, who was much more approachable than any teacher I had ever met.

… and she taught us about the sacrament of baptism. If I hadn’t been such a typical goody-two-shoes, I believe my neon sign with the “heathen atheist” claim would’ve surely made a spectacular comeback and taken someone’s eye out on the way as a bonus. I think I must’ve stopped the teacher every five minutes with a barrage of questions. After class, having been thoroughly freaked out by the implication of the lack of baptism, I of course made a bee line to the teacher to tell her about my… situation.

At the time, I had a sort of love-hate relationship with a classmate. She was constantly trying to push my buttons, but as soon as I got seriously mad at her, she’d instantly change tactics so we’d be all “bosom friends” once again. Just enough to throw me off balance, and then the spiel would start up again.

As soon as she saw me approach the teacher, she literally glued herself to me and refused to move.

Me: I’d like to have a private talk with you if possible.
Teacher: Yes of course.

We both turned to the girl and looked at her pointedly. She gave us a wide smile and generously urged us to continue.

Girl (grinning manically): I wanna hear it too!
Teacher: Really, have a bit of respect for your classmate.
Girl (still sporting the manic grin): I’m not leaving. I want to know too.
Me (whining): Oh come on…
Girl: No way! I wanna know!

Against my better judgement and mostly because recess was threatening to end⁸ I let the girl hear the story.
Apparently, my 13-year-old self was an open book complete with explanatory footnotes, as the teacher did not appear to be at all phased. I do still greatly appreciate her kindly answer “Oh I suspected something along those lines “.

I don’t exactly remember what I had hoped to achieve by telling the teacher all this. Plus, she was soon replaced by a different teacher⁹ ; letting the girl know about my lack of baptism was the singular worst decision of my entire middle school life.

Being different to everyone else, I was always intensely susceptible to any mean remark… always on tenterhooks that something awful would be discovered about me and then it would be all over¹⁰. I tended to cry a lot over nothing, which of course was a weakness one of the boys was ever so happy to exploit. And the girl… oooh, she just loved to blackmail me.

I don’t remember what we were fighting about anymore, only that I was cleaning the blackboard while she stood by and wanted to me to do something…

Girl (showing her trademark manic grin): Do it or I’ll tell him you’re not baptized.
Me (gritting my teeth): No you won’t…
Girl: Don’t try my patience…
Me (unconvincingly): You wouldn’t dare… You promised!
Girl: So what? Do it, or I’ll tell the whole class¹¹.
Me (firmly): No!

Still grinning, the girl turns around and speaks up, getting everyone’s attention.

Girl (smugly): Hey guys! Guess what? Vera’s not baptized!

People stare at her nonplussed, while some murmur something along the lines of “yeah, right…”. Clearly frustrated, the girl then turns to my main tormentor, stressing my lack of baptism again.

Guy (rudely): Have you recently hit your head? :huh:
Girl (nearly hysterical by now): I swear she’s not!
Guy (turning to me): What church were you baptized in?
Me (heart hammering a mile per second): I… don’treallyremember.
Guy (to the girl): You’re a basket case, you know?

When I recall the events now, I feel extremely giddy about it all. It was one of the few times I had managed to get the clear upper hand over her. My 13-year-old self however, was a tad bit too busy getting a heart attack to fully appreciate the irony of it all. *_*

The rest of my 7th grade was marked by my futile attempts of converting my parents.

Me: He exists!
Dad (gamely): Ok… if you prove it, I’ll believe you.
Me (glaring): …

Me: Just look at *insert random daily event* It’s clear that God had a “hand” in it.
Dad: Coincidence.

Vera stomps away to get more “ammo”, and the battle resumes the next day.

Interaction with my mom were even more frustrating. She’d be all logical and gently prodding. Things generally ended up circling the subject of “Do you think I’m a bad person?”. Obviously, I never had an adequate response to that.

I don’t think my parents have ever been hounded as much by traveling Jehova’s Witnesses either, and they used to be quite the persistent ones. XD

It was during 8th grade that my faith changed, not by much, but it would influence the way I’d see things for a long time… Sometimes I think the effects still last.

To be continued in part 3…

In the unlikely event that you’ve managed to follow me this far, feel free to add your own .02 cents. You can of course comment even if you just skimmed through it. Just as long as you’re not trying to sell me something. :B

1. Original picture from Bucurestii de altadata, couldn't find images for the 4th grade ones I used.
2. Classic example of Romanian bureaucracy in all its glory. :nod:
3. FTR, I'm the one who took the picture in 2008, when I went to Greece on holiday.
4. The term used for religious mass by the Orthodox and Greek Catholic rites.
5. … except for the part where you had to sing the religious hymns: it always seemed that I was the only one not knowing the lyrics. :suspicious:
6. Yes I am in fact a sadist, why do you ask? :B
7. Who had recently given birth and had us girls constantly coo over the lovely name Carina that she had chosen for her little girl.
8. I was constantly stressed about being even half a millisecond late to class: everybody would just stare at me and…. and… :suspicious:
9. So I had to tell the whole story again… this time, thankfully without the impertinent peanut gallery present.
10. Every 13-year-old is a drama queen, what makes you think I was any different?
11. Ironically, only about half the class was taking the subject. We had a few classes where we’d be separated into groups, so the teacher could better follow each of our progress.

From left to right:

• President surrounded by high-ranking Orthodox priests².
• Mayor commemorating a victim of the 1989 Communist Revolution³.
• Yearly gathering at Nicula Monastery to commemorate the Assumption of Mary⁴

At home before I started school, religion was not something we discussed. It was not a taboo subject or anything of the like; just something that never really came up. We celebrated Christmas… or rather its communist alternative where Father Frost (as opposed to Father Christmas) would bring nice kids gifts. There was also a lavishly decorated pine tree too, underneath which said presents were placed.

I vaguely remember singing a traditional Hungarian Christmas carol, every time before entering the living room to open gifts. It was called “Mennyböl az angyal” which translates to “The Angel from Heaven”. I had no idea what “Menny” (Heaven) meant at the time, so I would often sing it as “Megyböl az Angyal”, meaning “The Angel from the sour cherry”, much to my poor Grandmother’s horror.

My first God-related memory, stems from my kinder garden days. I think I was around 5, tucked in bed for the afternoon nap, holding a whispered conversation with the girl next to me:

Me: And what about God?
Girl: Huh?
Me (uncertainly): He’s inside you…
Girl (flippantly): He’s gone for a walk.

… then came the Communist Revolution and a year after that, I started primary school.

I attended a Hungarian primary school, and my parents fought tooth and nail to get me this amazing primary school teacher. She had also taught my older cousin⁵ . If you thought that Hungarians were any less religious than Romanians… well you would’ve been sadly mistaken. Sometimes I think that the fact that they’re an ethnic minority, somehow made them even more religious. Perhaps as a way of seeking refuge against the evil Romanians and their perfid ways .

One of the first things the teacher was required to ask, was our religious denomination to know which religious education class to put us into. For some reason, this was supposed to be a public flogging event, where everyone would stand up and state things like ‘I’m a Reformed‘ or ‘I’m a Catholic‘. When it was my turn, I just stood there all confused and eventually said ‘I’m… nothing.’

The teacher was of course flabbergasted, and the whole class turned to stare at me. I was never very comfortable in a crowd, so obviously being looked at as the oddity of the millennium didn’t exactly help. In the end, I was told to sit down, ask my parents and give my answer the next day. All this was said in a tone hinting towards “of course you’re baptized, you silly goose “.

Going home, I meekly recounted the story to my mother:

Me: So… today I was asked what my religion was.
Mom: Oh? And what did you say?
Me: I said I was nothing⁶ .
Mom: You said correctly.
Me: What about you then?
Mom: I wasn’t baptized either. Daddy was baptized in the Greek Catholic rite, but he’s not any more religious than I am.
Me(uncertainly): So… what religious education class am I going to attend then?
Mom: You are not. It’s not a compulsory class.

The next day, when the teacher asked me of my religion (in front of the whole class once again), I promptly answered “I am Catholic”. This seemed to pacify everyone and the issue appeared to have been dropped. I did feel rather lousy for having lied, but I figured that since most kids had their parents’ religion, it was not so much of a stretch for me to claim my dad’s.

Of course, things didn’t stop here. The next episode I remember had to do with bringing documents to school. Once again, students – or rather students’ parents – who forgot are publicly humiliated reminded to bring them to school.

Teacher: Please tell your parents that we need your “cross letter⁷” at school.
Me(dreading to answer): I don’t have one…
Teacher(incredibly annoyed): Of course you do! Everybody has one!

At home, my mom once again confirmed that I didn’t have such a thing, wondering why the teacher had asked of such a thing. After all she had gone and personally told the teacher that I was not baptized. Luckily, by some stroke of luck I mentioned the incident to my Granny, who used to be a primary school teacher as well, and she saved the day. Apparently “cross letter” was an old term for birth certificate…

The rest of my primary school days are not quite so clear in my memory. It’s mostly a series of events where the teacher would ask me in front of the whole class “Why aren’t your parents letting you attend religious education classes? You’re not being taught anything bad there.” followed by classmates parroting the teacher, of course.
Sometimes, I would try to retort, but of course being still an 8-year-old child, this didn’t really go well:

Me: My parents are not mean, they bought me a Bible and let me read it.
Teacher (haughtily): As if you could understand the Bible. Not even I can fully understand it.

Cue classmates staring at me pityingly, while I do my best to be swallowed by the ground.

After that I would generally be running home to my parents, tearfully begging to be allowed to attend religious education classes. My parents however, were not the uneducated hillbillies my primary school teacher was used to dealing with… they were sneaky and knew my character quite well.
Our ‘negotiations’went pretty much like this:

Dad: Why do you want to attend religious education classes?
Me (bawling): Because everyone else is attending!
Dad: But you’d have to go to school an hour earlier or stay an hour later.
Me (wavering): … yes.
Dad: And you’d have more homework too…
Me: Yeah… they even have tests during classes.
Dad: Do you really need extra homework? On top of your swimming lessons/ piano classes?!
Me (sulkily): … no.

Of course, I’d forget all the above and sneak out earlier some days to attend religious education classes. Classmates were all really happy to let me attend, especially since this was one thing they knew which the top of the class⁸ didn’t. But you know, in the end the novelty wore off for both sides. I still sometimes stealthily sneaked into these classes once in a blue moon, but having extra homework to worry about put a serious damper on ever considering attending “full time”. Not to mentioned that I liked being treated as somewhat of a celebrity.
My classmates, they continued to be horrified at my doing needle-work on Sunday⁹.

In the end, I managed to do something even worse than be an atheist heathen. After finishing primary school, I decided to go to a Romanian school… Well technically my parents decided this, and disgustingly enough I was more swayed by their logical arguments than my classmates’ repeated insults or my teacher’s claims that my Romanian knowledge was already very good¹⁰.

After this, things … started to change on the “religious front“. I’ll let you decide if it was for the better or worse in Part 2.

Feel free to share your (early) religious experiences, or other comments related to this… well assuming of course anyone was patient enough to get here. XD

1. Not necessarily of a religious nature.
2. Picture from How Religious Are Romanian Politicians
3. Picture from December 22nd 2009 at Falticeni
4. Picture from Nicula a magnet for Christians and Politicians
5. Whose coolness level skyrockets by the mere fact that he’s 3 years older than I am.
6. At the time, I didn’t think of the irony of saying such a thing, and my mom is not the type to think of “hidden meanings”. =/
7. A literal translation of keresztlevél
8. i.e. yours truly
9. We had to sew a skirt once, and as per usual I had put things off till the very last minute.
10. It all depends on who you were comparing me to, after all.

Lovely jewellery from Millefiori

Sales girl: What about these? They’re the same model as the one’s on the top shelf.
Me (enthusiastically): Oh they’re lovely… but I rather like the color contrast of the ones from the shelf, but not colors themselves… would you have that is yellow or brown?
Sales girl: Oh er…

To her credit, she didn’t seem to visibly insult me². Score for customer service, I guess XD

1. coughI’msoeffinglaxycough -_-;
2. …not even mentally :nod:

Case in point, this following conversation:

Me: So I finally got around to going to the dentist. And she told me the reason for my swollen cheek; it is dental alveolistis.
Friend: … I have no idea what that is.
Me: I didn’t either, so I googled it. Bad idea…
Friend (now very interested): Well what is it?
Me: It’s a complication that can arise after a tooth extraction. Among other things, it can involve the superficial necrosis of the jaw bone. *cue oppressing silence*
Friend (meekly): … um… what does necrosis mean?
Me: Oh you know… like in necrophilia…
Friend: *blank stare*
Me: You know what zoophilia means, right?¹ It’s the same, only with dead people.
Friend: *looks at me aghast*
Me: OK, that was a bad example… it’s like necromancy.²
Friend: Huh?
Me (sheepishly): The art of reviving dead people… well… not that this actually exists.
Friend (aghast): Oh…
Me: So basically necro refers to dead things.

In retrospect, I’m starting to think that dropping that teaching module in university might have been a good idea. Or maybe not?

1. It refers to humans having sex with animals, for those of you who don’t read all the creepy stuff that I do. :suspicious:
2. I swear I learned of this word from reading J.R.R. Tolkien’s Hobbit, yes I’m serious. :nod:

Since when did any child suffer feelings of anger and abandonment because they didn’t own a playstation?

excerpt from The Deadbeat Dad Myth

… and that instantly reminded me of my high-school years.

From what I gathered during my wanderings around the blogosphere, in the “civilized world”¹ going to a great school generally means attending a private school. In Romania however, though private school tuition costs a lot more² , the teaching standards are dismal.³

Seeing as the great schools here are public schools, inevitably some have a better reputation than others. Of course, once a school gains a better reputation all the “rich kids” flock there.⁴ In conclusion, not only were these public schools boasting about great educational standards, but also about elite snobs students. The high-school I attended was one of these famous public schools.

At the time I was blissfully unaware of all the social rankings money dictated. Heck, I remember having been utterly shocked when my dad told me that our family was not only not rich, but even considering ourselves middle-class was toeing the proverbial line. I thought all that only happened in fairy tales.⁵

I remember my Latin teacher having once made an offhand comment about high school B being full of rich snobby kids, while mine had more normal students. These two schools were people’s top choices when looking for a high-school. From that time on, I kind of took it for granted that my school had ‘normal’ people in it.

Of course, home room always provoked all sorts of funny feelings in me. The teacher would sometimes make these offhand comments about someone’s incredibly loaded dad/mom/third cousin once removed… Then there were those times I found myself jealous of over 70% of my class when they proceeded to list all the cool places they visited before they were even 10 years old. Never mind that they barely had any memories of said trips, the important thing was that that girl had visited Hong Kong!⁶

I don’t explicitly remember having asked my parents to go on trips abroad. I do however remember once complaining about not being privy to the monthly allowance the state would provide for children, like the rest of my classmates.
My parents have simply looked at me and asked:

So you’ll be paying for your own food, clothing, school books and trips from now on, right?

That instantly stalled all my attempts at gaining even a shred of ‘financial‘ independence. To be fair, I highly doubt that the sum they were receiving was enough to cover all the aforementioned expenses. At the time though, it was more money than I had ever had access to, so it obviously seemed like a fortune. Now don’t get me wrong, I got a monthly pocket money which tended to be supplemented by money for various other little things for which I was allowed to keep the change. Only… I couldn’t afford to buy the ever-so-cool sandwich⁷ from the school kiosk every day, merely once a week.

And yet after all that, when I think back on it, my high-school life was this huge romantic period, filled with glamorous teachers, funny classmates, skipping class en-masse to avoid tests almost no one’s studied for… It never once occurs to me that I was one of the few poor kids in class.⁸

Then, when it was my youngest cousin’s turn to choose high-schools, I innocently asked my aunt:

Me: Why don’t you consider [school I attended]?
Aunt: And get even MORE complaints about how he’s ashamed of his condition?! He’d never survive four years there!

And you know? I took that really hard and resentfully… :shake:

1. i.e. first world countries
2. Pre-university education is for the most part free, in public schools.
3. Less than 50% of the students pass the national standard apitute examinations.
4. To be more accurate, they are herded there by their parents… but this is a ‘minor’ detail.
5. I was around 15 years old, at the time, and ironically enough not an indoctrinated believer in the communist system – besides, I was 6 when it was abolished in Romania.
6. At the time, I wasn’t even fully convinced that this place even existed!
7. Duh, when has junk food ever looked disgusting to any teenager?
8. Not all of my classmates had bank directors, or footbal stars for parents.

Specifically, footnotes of the following kind:

Ironically enough, I now recall this scene from the movie What a Girl Wants, where Ian tells Daphne : “Why do you try so hard to fit in, when you’re born to stand out?”. At the time it sounded totally cool to me, but somehow it doesn’t translate that nicely into real life.

Rendered garbled, when hovering over the footnote number link, as shown in the screenshot:

Red circles mark the badly encoded symbols.

To fix this, simply replace line 217, in footnotes.php file from the plugin directory:

217

$id_title = str_replace('"', """, htmlentities(strip_tags($value['text']), ENT_QUOTES, 'UTF-8'));

With the following:

217

$id_title = str_replace('"', """, html_entity_decode(htmlentities(strip_tags($value['text'])), ENT_QUOTES, 'UTF-8'));

On a completely unrelated note, it only took me 2 months to type this up, from the time I fixed the issue. Gives a whole new meaning to procrastination, eh¹ ?

1. It’s fixed now, see? I can even use “quotes”…

I’m not sure sure about other countries, but here most people who’re part of some minority seem to love it. A superficial research would dismiss my claim, but I’m telling you: those people just love to whine. They go on TV, they moan, they give you puppy-dog eyes and they make sure that the ethnic majority gets to be painted as the bad guy. Of course, that doesn’t mean that the majority doesn’t act mean and doesn’t make snide remarks.

Personally, I am proud of every single one of my foreign genes, but I also do my damnest to be perceived as a regular and full-fledged citizen of my country.
I do admit though, that of my favorite compliments is:

You’re of Hungarian descent² ? Oh but you surely don’t speak the language right? You do? Wow really? But you don’t have an accent!

*Cue awed silence, while yours truly does her best to “modestly” preen*³

My poor grandmother⁴ always deplored this mentality of mine. But really, what would one gain by publicly flaunting that you don’t really belong to the country that you live in? Most especially when you have no intention of emigrating. It’s not that I deny my heritage, but rather don’t mention it, unless specifically asked⁵ .

Ironically enough, I did encounter Romanians who were somewhat bewildered by my insistence to be perceived as a regular citizen just like them. It was as if they were expecting me to sleep with a picture of some Hungarian political leader under my pillow… never mind that I had never expressed any interest in politics⁶ .

Are you part of an ethnic minority? If yes, do you feel the need to preserve your individuality as said ethnic minority? Or do you avoid to mention this, if not specifically asked?

If you’re not an ethnic minority, how do you view these people? Do you expect them to act true to their ethnic heritage?

1. Ironically enough, I now recall this scene from the movie What a Girl Wants, where Ian tells Daphne : “Why do you try so hard to fit in, when you’re born to stand out?”. At the time it sounded totally cool to me, but somehow it doesn’t translate that nicely into real life.
2. My grandfather has had his surname changed by one of his relatives, so no one would actually suspect that I wouldn’t be 100% Romanian – the ethnic majority in Romania.
3. Not sure if such a thing is actually possible, but one can always try, right?
4. May she rest in peace
5. Mostly by listing both Hungarian and Romanian as languages I’m fluent in, in my CV.
6. I make a point of not discriminating: they’re all equally foul.

The following story, happened more or less a year ago⁶. I was just finishing up my Christmas shopping, when I saw an old ID lying on the street, at my feet. My initial reaction was to ignore it, but my curiosity got the better of me, so I opened it. It was an older type of ID, which looks like a little notebook. I looked at the address, stared around for anyone looking as if they’d lost something and dropped it back down again. For some reason, I figured that it’d be incredibly cruel of me to take it. What if the owner would come looking for it? In the end, I went back and took it with me.

Now that I had it, the big dilemma was what to do with it.

1. take it to the Police.
   
   They’d probably be able to find the owner much quicker than me. Downside: our police is of the whacked up kind, who’d be liable to accuse me of having stolen the darn thing myself⁷.
2. take it to the address written on it.

Now the older types of IDs, unlike the current cards, didn’t get “changed” when they expired. You’d just get a stamp on it, saying it’s valid again for another 10 years⁸. Same with address changes, the new address would be written on the next page. Not having checked IDs very often, I just looked at the address on the first page, and directed a cab to it. As I was asking the driver to make two stops (on opposite parts of the town), the cab driver obviously got curious.

Me(all worried): Oh you know I found an ID lying around, and I thought I should return it.
Cab driver: Oh! That is indeed rare! You are such a lady!
Me (embarrassed): Not really…
Cab driver: Now don’t be shy. I bet no one else would’ve done what you’re doing.

So we get to the destination, which is a rather run-down block of flats, where the post boxes are not numbered. So I just stand around looking at them, trying to judge which one might have belonged to the lady in the picture. Eventually I found a post box, with the number scratched on the metal door⁹ so I prepare to slide the ID in. All of a sudden, I do get (an uncharacteristically) bright idea, to check the name of the person listed as living there. Not sure how it is elsewhere, but here, if you live in a block of flats, on the ground floor there is a list with the names of owners near each apartment number. As luck would have it, the name didn’t match the one in the ID at all. So I just stood there forlorn…

The smart thing, would have of course been to go to the nearest police station and drop it off. Or even open the ID and look for a new address. Then again, that would have meant being a real nice person¹⁰ – and I’m anything BUT. So I just slid the ID into the post box and high-tailed back into the cab.

Cab driver: I’m still in awe. There are still real ladies left in this country. That’s just so great.
Me (starting to feel sick): You’re wrong!
Cab driver: … and modest too.
Me (getting more scared by the minute): I think I got the post box wrong. I should have just gone to a Police station.
Cab driver (in extasy): A REAL LADY!

I still feel guilty about not having gone to a Police station instead… well when I remember the incident. This did happen a year ago, after all.

What are YOUR holiday stories?
I’m feeling all Grinch-like because I don’t have the week off this year, so I need some pick-me-up stories.

1. Or, alternately, have ever been lectured by one
2. Such as the aforementioned atheist
3. Out of the norm, for an egoist that is.
4. Actual start of the process would take up at least another half an hour
5. You wouldn’t believe the drama I used to cause/endure
6. Gives a whole new meaning to = being a procrastinator =, eh?
7. Not that I’ve ever been accused of such a thing, but I read stories… on blogs no less.Highly reputable sources, if I may say so
8. or the rest of your life, if you were over a certain age
9. In a rather creepy manner, I might add.
10. and using my brain efficiently

In case you didn’t know¹ I moved out from my parents’ place about 2 years ago. My reasons for doing that were:

1. Because I could (duh!)
2. Because I felt I was too old to live with them anymore

Reason no.2 especially feels silly,² now that I think back. I remember having read about my independent e-friends, who were living on their own, and being all responsible with bills and grocery expenses, complaining about rent and utilities… I, on the other hand, was a few years older, had a stable job, but was still ‘freeloading’ at my parents’ place. To this day, both my mom and my dad take offense whenever I mention this. After all, they are my parents and they are happy to support me, and as their child I really shouldn’t worry about such stupid things.

Keeping that in mind, I can’t help but find it odd and perhaps a bit cruel to read about people living at home AND paying rent as well. Now don’t get me wrong, once I had my own salary³ I did pay for my own clothes, gadgets, insignificant little knick-knacks. I’d generally give my dad my food stamps too. I also insisted on treating my parents for “cool stuff” whenever I got the chance.⁴

Though I write a lot unflattering anecdotes about my parents here⁵, I do love and admire them greatly. My parents were never rich (still aren’t) by any stretch of imagination, but they weren’t poor either. When I read about other families who seem to be better off (comparatively), yet still ask their kids for monetary contribution just makes me appreciate them all the more. So I do my best to give them back at least a little of what they gave me.

Out of everything they did, it’s their support that counted for most. I was able to just concentrate on studying⁶ without having to worry about other expenses on top of everything.
I’ll definitely do my best to provide the same for my own kids, when I’ll have them.

1. Do you live with your parents?
2. Do/Did you pay rent while doing so?
3. How do you feel about parents supporting you (financially) after a certain age?

1. Because for some weird reason you don’t read my footnotes, shame on you by the way
2. Despite the fact that I agonized over this decision for about a year
3. Which was comparable to either of my parents’
4. You’d be surprised how much resistance they would put up for getting free stuff.
5. I’m shameless when it comes to my traffic
6. Not that I did much concentrating, but you know, I could have been able to do so.

1. team you’re-doing-it-wrong-and-you’re-boasting-about-it
2. team my-opinion-is-obviously-right-gtfo

As such, it frequently meant that one would just need to count down the minutes/seconds until…

… but I’m only doing this as a hobby, so I don’t have to be perfect!

or a close variant such as

Who cares about *insert random concept of choice* it’s not like this is school/someone’s grading me here.

Because Merlin forbid¹ you’d actually try to do one of your hobbies, the correct way, right? Ah yes, for those of you who didn’t know by now, I’m an exponent of the first team. As such, obviously biased.²

There was only ever one circle where I never managed to get into the elite club. This was invariably because I could never manage to be hypocritical enough, to take the time to climb the ladder. More specifically: the anime club. *cue raucous laughter and scoffing* >_>

Before you get too carried away, try to envision the following:

- You like movies a lot.
- You spend a lot of money going to the cinema just for the experience of seeing a movie on the big screen.
- After seeing hundreds and thousands of movies, you figure that you might get a shot at getting into a club, where you can discuss movies with other like-minded individuals. I.e. beyond the regular I liked it/I didn’t like it conversation you’d have with non-movie fanatics.
-Imagine your surprise when you glance at the admission test and see:
1. Please name the color of the left sock, of obscure character, who did obscure action which didn’t really influence the plot line, but everyone thinks it should have.

Arguably, those not in the elite club of webdesigner/developers could claim that this is exactly how the leet members sound. So I let it go, and figured that maybe I need to look for a more… light-weight fan club.

And then I stumble upon a news post claiming that a “boys-love”³ manga is getting a movie/tv series. Most people either ditch the genre because “I’m straight GTFO with your evil propaganda” or better yet “Ewww, boys-love how disgusting! Where’s my girls-love anime⁴ ?”. …and nobody points out the hypocrisy of it all. :shake:
Ironically enough, most fans claim that they like anime so much because of its tolerance… :nod:

The sad thing? Despite how I feel about anime elitism now, I’m pretty sure I’ll read something in a few days which’ll make me wish I could be part of the club… yet again.

How do you relate to elitism? In any kind of field, not necessarily related to anime or webdesign/development.

1. I’m an agnostic, so do appreciate my political correctness
2. Not that the second team isn’t, however that’s just an irrelevant detail…
3. Or yaoi, if you prefer
4. Or yuri, if you prefer